A locomotive which travels over the rails of a track may experience different rail temperatures as the locomotive travels along the track. For example, the locomotive may travel over rails having an extremely low rail temperature which may cause the rails to crack or pull apart, resulting in a possible safety hazard. In another example, the locomotive may travel over rails having an extremely high rail temperature which may cause the rails to buckle, resulting in another possible safety hazard. In such instances of an extremely low or an extremely high rail temperature, the locomotive speed needs to be adjusted accordingly, to minimize the risk of such safety hazards.
Several conventional systems have been suggested to monitor the temperature of the rails of a track. These conventional systems may warn a locomotive operator if the locomotive is traveling over a rail having an unsafe temperature, for example. However, such conventional systems measure an ambient air temperature at a location and utilize this ambient air temperature measurement to project whether the rails have an extremely high or an extremely low temperature. Additionally, when deciding whether the rail temperature has returned to a safe level, and to lift an issued warning to a locomotive operator, the conventional systems typically do not utilize ambient air temperature, but instead a daytime event such as sunset, for example. Additionally, these conventional systems typically measure the ambient air temperature at one location, but use this measurement to project the rail temperature over a significant geographic area and multiple regions of the track beyond the location of the ambient air temperature measurement.
Thus, these conventional systems are inherently limited in their ability to minimize the number of instances and locations of issued warnings to locomotive operators of unsafe rail temperatures. Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a system capable of minimizing the number of instances and locations of issued warnings to the locomotive operators, and a system to correspondingly regulate the locomotive speed during such warnings.